Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/202

 188 opinions of the crowd. When the novelists had finished telling us, in the newspapers and magazines, what they thought about one another, and especially what they thought about themselves, it then became the turn of novel-readers to tell us what they thought about fiction. This sudden invasion of the Vandals left to the novelists but one resource, but one undisputed privilege. They could permit us to know and they have permitted us to know just how they came to write their books; in what moments of inspiration, under what benign influences, they gave to the world those priceless pages.

After which, unless the unsilenced public comes forward to say just how and when and where they read the volumes, they must acknowledge themselves routed from the field.

La vie de parade has reached its utmost license when a Prime Minister of England is asked to tell the world—after the manner of old Father William—how he has kept so hale; when the Prince of Wales is requested to furnish a list of readable books; when an